She jerked her hand away from her face. The room swam once and steadied.
She became aware of a deep ache along the inside of her upper arm, a thumb-shaped tenderness she couldn’t remember earning.
Her skin remembered more than she did.
Under the clean starch of flannel she caught a faint soap that wasn’t hers—something herbal and sharp, threaded through herwrists, her throat, her hair. The smell slid under her own like an erasure.
He washed me.
Her mind recoiled.
He’d found her slack and helpless, stripped away what she’d been wearing, and washed her like she wasn’t fully there. He moved her when he needed to—guiding, lifting, turning—without hesitation or care for what she felt. He didn’t ask. He didn’t look away. When he was finished, he dried her and dressed her in what he’d decided she should wear.
The bra and panties on the rod weren’t just proof he’d undressed her.
They were proof he’d taken his time.
A tremor started in her thighs and ran all the way up her spine before she could choke it off.
She turned toward the far wall, where a faint vertical line broke the cream paint. This had to be a door. Solid. She tested it once.
No give.
No handle. No hinges. Only that seam where wall met wall.
Pocket door. The kind that slid into the wall from the outside.
The kind you opened from his side.
That was the moment panic tried to surface—Where am I?She shut it down.
Force wouldn’t help. Noise wouldn’t help. Observation would.
No windows—only the skylights, twelve feet up.
“Hello?” she called, louder. “Hey!”
Silence held. The fridge hummed. The clock ticked. Somewhere in the wall a soft relay clicked and stilled.
When the voice came, it didn’t arrive from the hall. It came from the air itself—calm, amplified, male—nowhere and everywhere at once.
“Good morning, Sara.”
The sound hit her like a hand on the back of her neck. She jerked before she could stop it—then hated herself for it.
Her fingers tightened on the robe belt until her knuckles ached.
“Open the door,” she said. “Now.”
“Eat,” the voice said, mild as a teacher. “Rest. And write. The story is your freedom.”
Her scalp prickled.
Don’t give him anything. Don’t let him hear it.
“Who are you?” It came smaller than she meant. “What do you want?”
A patient pause. Then, almost tender:
